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Keep the Lights On | Co-writer/Director, Ira Sachs

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, January 20 8:30 pm –Library Center Theatre, Park City]

It’s not for nothing that we watch films in dark rooms, without the lights on. It’s the most intimate of artistic mediums. When a film works, we feel a nearly physical connection to the actors we are watching, as if they are playing out our own lives on screen. I like films that are messy and imperfect, that are unable to fully contain all the life going on within them. Filmmakers like Cassavetes and Loach, Fassbinder and Pialat. The plot never rules the character. The actor might at any moment step outside the boundaries of the frame.

With Keep the Lights On, I wanted to make a movie about behavior that’s often kept hidden, but to do so with complete transparency. To share a part of myself with the viewer. Like a risky conversation one has with a close friend late at night, full of whispers and understanding. We shouldn’t be talking about these things, but I’m so glad we did.

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